Thanks to all, especially Bob. I'm definitely surprised to see where this song originally came from. As for the speed of the folk process, note that the Furey's version is at least 20 years old, so quite close (in time) to the original. Imagine that I even once took an n-volume encyclopedia to find out that a person in Scotland once was nicknamed "Cock of the North" and then wrongly thought I was somewhat close to the original idea for this song. If I find out which tune the Furey's were using I'll let you know.

Wolfgang